Notification System Heuristics

Notifications should be timely

A notification must arrive in time to be useful. If data is being monitored, the notification should report the most current data as soon as the user desires it. A sports score or stock data that arrives hours too late is worthless. A warning that a critical system is down for a machine that arrives even seconds late can be life-threatening. Also, notifications can arrive too often, as perhaps a user only wants a data update every hour.

Notifications should be reliable

All of the information in the notification should be identical to that of the underlying system. Incorrect info can lead to undesirable reactions. False alarms become very annoying, ranging from fire alarms to critical status info for a system, like a nuclear reactor. This leads to mistrust of all future notifications. Also, any notifications that should occur but never do are incorrect notifications.

Notification displays should be consistent (within priority levels)

The method of displaying a notification should be consistent for a level of notification. For example, all high priority notifications should be consistent so the user knows the priority when they notice the notification. The only reason to change the display method is if the intent is to alter the level of interruption, reaction, or comprehension.

Information should be clearly understandable by the user

Language and display method should target the users. When a notification occurs, a user should be able to understand at least the basic information the notification is trying to convey. This allows the user to decide quickly how to respond, where one response may be that the notification deserves further study.

Allow for shortcuts to more information

When appropriate, a notification should provide a gateway to a related information system. For example, a news headline can link to a full news story. A new email notice can link to the actual mail. When this is not possible, such as a notification system involving a waterfall that indicates amount of rain, the user should be able to know enough about the system so that they can find detailed information related to the notification. In this case, there would be a method of determining the exact weather outside.

Indicate status of notification system

The system should be aware of the rate it is able to provide information. If new info is only available every hour, the user should be aware of that. If a system is unable to provide notifications, it should inform the user of that status. This way the user does not expect notifications that will never occur. For example, if an email server can not be reached, a new email notification system should notify the user of that problem.

Provide context of notifications

If there is a cycle, or progression, of information, such as sports scores, there should be a way of indicating context. This allows the user to plan their allocation of attention, get a sense of the cycle length, and expect status changes. That means the user should be able to see what scores are upcoming, and thus are able to plan when to pay attention to the notifications so that they see the info they desire.

Customization:

Allow adjustment of notification parameters to fit user goals

The way a notification is presented can be altered. For example, this can be the amount of viewing area a notification takes up or the levels of sound or physical movement can be changed to become more or less interruptive.

The actions required by a notification can be altered so that they can range from virtually ignoring the notification to having to take multiple steps to respond to the notification.

The amount of information conveyed can be adjusted to provide varying levels of detail. The system can also adjust the types of info it displays to meet user goals. For example, a user can request to only be notified about one sports team, instead of all sports scores.